


Touch

by White Queen Writes (fhartz91)



Series: Prince of Omens [6]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Don't copy to another site, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Ineffable Valentines 2020 (Good Omens), Inspired by Fanart, Inspired by Fanfiction, M/M, Post-Canon, Romance, Wing Grooming, pre-Fall memories, prince of omens, star making
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:42:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22795738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fhartz91/pseuds/White%20Queen%20Writes
Summary: An angel's touch can make a demon remember Heaven, which is why demons avoid them at all costs.But Crowley craves Aziraphale's touch more than anything in the world.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Prince of Omens [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1630693
Comments: 22
Kudos: 270
Collections: Ineffable Valentines 2020





	Touch

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Prince of Omens](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21848095) by [WhiteleyFoster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteleyFoster/pseuds/WhiteleyFoster). 



> This is a small fic with many inspirations. The first is Ineffable Valentine's prompt 'touch'. The second is Whiteley Foster's Prince of Omens secondary fic 'Down'. I was going to wait till 'Down' was finished, to see if my ideas intertwined, but I didn't want to sit on this too long. I have a bunch of stuff piling up and I need to move along XD The third inspiration was gemennair's DTIYS where Crowley shows Aziraphale how he created the stars.

“Mmm …”

“Shh … There, there …”

“A-angel?”

“It’s all right, my dear. Go back to sleep.”

“Aziraphale?” Crowley’s head lifts from his pillow, but a hand to his head, combing through his hair, gently pushes it back down. “Wh-what are you doing?”

“I’m preening you.”

“Preening me?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“But it’s …” A single amber eye opens, peering through the darkness to locate the nearest clock. When Crowley spots it, his eyelid pops open in disbelief “… _two in the bloody morning_!”

“So it is,” Aziraphale replies, smoothing down a small patch of feathers before moving on to the next.

“Why are you preening me at two in the morning?”

“Because I don’t sleep, my dear.” Aziraphale sighs, his rolling eyes audible between his words. “Aside from reading, what else would I be doing? By the by, has anyone ever told you your down is lovely?”

“Once or twice,” Crowley yawns, crossing his arms beneath his head and resting his cheek on them as he relaxes beneath his angel’s firm but careful caress.

“It is.” Aziraphale hums appreciatively. “ _Very_ lovely. So glossy and black and …”

“So why does it need preening?” Crowley interrupts, slightly uncomfortable listening to Aziraphale compliment his demon wings. Crowley happens to be prouder than punch of them.

But as memory serves (and it doesn’t always) they're nothing compared to his angel wings.

“It’s just a little ruffled. From … you know … you sleeping on them.”

Crowley grins at the shudder in Aziraphale’s voice, the way it modulates, skips tones like pebbles across a pond …

… the shy pride it betrays.

Crowley doesn’t often sleep with his wings unfurled. He tosses and turns during the night and his wings get caught up underneath him. If he manages to spend longer than an hour sleeping in one position, they go numb.

But he unfurls his wings when he and Aziraphale make love. Afterwards, he’s often too worn out to tuck them back in. So he lays them flat over the bed, and over Aziraphale’s lap while he sits up and reads, and falls asleep that way. He’s a far less restless sleeper with Aziraphale in bed beside him.

He knows he’s being looked after by his own personal guardian angel.

That makes him a fortunate demon.

“It bothered you that much?” Crowley teases, the sleepy smirk that lifts the corners of his lazy mouth _everything_ to Aziraphale.

“No.” Aziraphale leans over and kisses Crowley’s forehead, the smile he presses to his skin fond, full of love … and sadness. “I wanted an excuse to touch you.”

“You don’t need an excuse to touch me. You can touch me whenever you like.”

“I didn’t mean to wake you. Should I let you get back to sleep?”

“I’m good.” Crowley shifts on the bed so Aziraphale can reach the farthest edges of his wing more easily, so he can rest his head on his angel’s knee. “Do you remember the first time you did this for me?”

Aziraphale’s fingers stall, tangled between wing and words, but they don’t stay that way for long. “Yes, I do. I remember every time I’ve touched you … and every time you’ve touched me. Touches had been so few and far between for so long. But I didn’t think that first time was something you liked to think about.”

“It’s not. I mean, not the things that lead up to the moment. Not my trial … and not falling … not adjusting to life as a demon. But you? I like remembering you. Even fuzzy memories of you are good memories.”

Aziraphale gives Crowley another wistful kiss followed by another sad smile. Fuzzy. That’s how Crowley describes his memories of Heaven. Aziraphale isn’t entirely certain that excuse is as true as Crowley makes it out to be. _Are_ those memories fuzzy? Or does he say that so he doesn’t feel obligated to drudge them up for Aziraphale?

Doesn’t feel too guilty when he doesn’t feel like talking about it?

Aziraphale’s memories of Crowley before his Fall are muddy, too. That was Heaven’s doing - wiping the minds of any angel they’d come in contact with, any angel who’d heard their angelic name the second they left Heaven’s ranks. Sadly, several angels have been erased from Aziraphale’s reckoning. He couldn’t recall them even if someone held Hellfire to his head. On the rare occasion he does sleep, he thinks he sees their faces.

Their eyes in particular.

The look of devastation when their sentences were carried out, their frightened acceptance when they were tossed from the clouds.

Aziraphale and Crowley weren’t friends in Heaven. Being a Principality, Aziraphale didn’t spend time with Starmakers, which is what Crowley had been. He wishes they had, wishes there was a whole history of the two of them before the one they wrote on Earth. Before today, before _I love you_ , before The Ark and Egypt and Calvary and Soho and Mayfair and the Apoca-didn’t and all the other places and times that fingerprint their relationship, six-thousand years seemed like a long time.

Now it doesn’t seem long at all.

“What do you remember about Heaven?” Aziraphale asks. He’s asked dozens of times, and every time the answer is the same.

A sorrowful sigh, and the words, “Not much … thankfully.”

“Do you think you’d miss it if you remembered?”

Crowley shrugs one shoulder. “I’d miss some things,” he says, rolling onto his back, exposing the underside of his wings for his angel’s attention.

Aziraphale moves when Crowley does, crawling over him, straddling his hips.

Hovering above him so he can look in Crowley’s eyes.

“Such as?”

“I’d miss the crisp, cool air on my face if I could remember it.”

“If you fly high enough up into the atmosphere, where moisture turns into ice crystals on your skin, you can still have that. Or something close to it.”

“True. But it’s not the same. I don’t remember what the air in Heaven feels like, but I know … it’s not the same. Plus, you run the risk of ending up on some pilot’s radar and becoming labeled a UFO.”

“Yes.” Aziraphale chuckles. “I do recall a few grainy videos circulating a decade or two ago that bore a striking resemblance to your handsome figure.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny.”

“Anything else?”

Crowley sighs. “I miss the stars. I miss creating them, pulling them from the fabric of the Universe and setting them loose in the sky. If I concentrate hard, I can still conjure up a few …” He reaches up a hand, palm flat and facing up, and rotates his fingers. Lights dance from the tips, sparks of blue and orange like tiny fireworks. They bring a smile to Crowley’s lips, one that Aziraphale only sees when they’re alone together. The lights hop through the air, spinning round and round like a dog chasing its tail, looking for a place to settle. But before they get the chance, they sputter to a halt and fall, blinking out before they reach the mattress. Crowley watches them, his smile fading as they extinguish into dust. “But they die too quickly.”

“That’s heartbreaking.” Aziraphale takes Crowley’s hand, holds it to his heart. He’s never attempted making stars himself. All angelic power can be used to create so, theoretically, he should be able. But he doesn’t think he has the artistic vision to pull it off. If he could turn them into words then maybe, but he doesn’t think the Almighty would appreciate Her night sky resembling a bowl of cosmic alphabet soup.

“Some demons say that the touch of an angel can make you remember Heaven,” Crowley adds with a dark chuckle, “which is why demons avoid angels at all costs.”

“Why? Why would they not want to remember?”

“Because remembering Heaven and not being able to go back to it …” Crowley shakes his head “… it can drive you insane. After a few thousand years, many demons will tell you they wouldn’t return to Heaven if you gave them the world as an appetizer. But you can’t really trust demons, can you?”

Crowley winks. It’s playful, honest.

But it nearly brings Aziraphale to tears.

“Does _my_ touch take you back to Heaven?” Aziraphale asks earnestly, but he doesn’t know which answer he’d prefer. A _yes_ would be as crushing to him as a _no,_ all things considered. He doesn’t want to hurt Crowley, but without intending to, he can’t seem to stop.

“Aziraphale ...” Crowley wraps his arms and his wings around him, pulls him down onto his body and holds him close “… your touch _is_ Heaven.”


End file.
